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Documentary

Karine Versluis

Photographer

Karine Versluis

Debaltsevo, Where Are You?

Debaltsevo is a city in Donbass region Ukraine. It is also the city where the grandmother of photographer Karine Versluis was born and raised.
In 2015, Debaltsevo came under heavy fire during The Battle of Debaltsevo. During a cease-fire in February 2015, residents were given the opportunity to evacuate.
What happened to the people who fled from Debaltsevo? Where are they? What does their life look like now?

Debaltsevo, Where Are You? follows a number of people who now live elsewhere in Ukraine and are
rebuilding their lives. The project is about how to start a new life and how to make yourself at home in a new place after leaving everything behind you ever had.

Karine Versluis

Karine Zenja Versluis (Staphorst, 1980) is a Dutch documentary photographer and visual storyteller based in Amsterdam.  In her work she explores how people deal with their identity, culture and the society in which they live, and how it influences their daily life. Karine works with photography combined with audio, video, found footage or text. An important part of her work is to involve the audience with her projects during or after the presentation. 
After obtaining her Bachelor in Social Work, she studied Photography at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. In 2015 she pursued a postgraduate degree in Audiovisual Editing at the University Pompeu Fabra-IDEC in Barcelona.
Two of Karine ‘s  photograph series have been published as books: STAPHORST and Enkeltje Schiphol/ One-Way Ticket to Schiphol Airport. In 2016 her first short film What Time Is It? had its premiere at the Nederlands Film Festival in Utrecht and was selected for the Debut Competition. Work has been exhibited at the Netherlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam, Kunsthal Rotterdam, Fotomuseum Den Haag, Humanity House Den Haag, FOTODOK Utrecht, EYE Filmmuseum Amsterdam, Noorderlicht Fotofestival Groningen, Fotofrűhling Kassel (DE), Lagos Photofestival (NG), Kolga Tbilisi Photo (GE), OjodePez Photomeeting (ES), Encontros Da Imagem (PT) amongst others.
Besides her documentary projects, Karine is a certified photovoice trainer and works as a social worker in youth mental health care.